eBay Cut Another 1,100 Jobs. What It Means for Sellers.

When other big tech companies cut jobs, the story is usually the same. They hired way too many people during the pandemic. Then they had to cut back. That fits Amazon and Google.

It does not really fit eBay.

eBay did not go on a big hiring spree during the pandemic. At the end of 2020, it had about 12,700 workers. One year later, it had about 10,800. That is fewer, not more. A lot of that was because eBay sold off some side businesses during those years.

But something did happen after the pandemic. eBay’s payroll slowly grew back. By the end of 2025, the company had about 12,300 workers, more than it had at the end of 2021, while its sales stayed about the same. eBay’s own CEO admitted the problem in January 2024, when he told staff the company’s “overall headcount and expenses have outpaced the growth of our business.”

So the layoffs are not a panic. eBay is trimming its payroll back down to a size that fits its sales.

There is one more thing to know. In July 2026, eBay closed a deal to buy Depop, a used-clothing app that is popular with younger shoppers. eBay paid about 1.2 billion dollars for it and bought it from Etsy.

Did that deal play a part in the layoffs? Maybe. eBay has said it wants to put more money into its fastest-growing areas, and a young, growing app like Depop fits that. But eBay has not directly connected the two, so I won’t either. I’m just noting that it happened around the same time.

Depop brings about 7 million buyers and more than 3 million sellers, most of them under 34. That is exactly the crowd eBay wants more of.

eBay is not as packed with sellers as it once was. Back in 2014, eBay had about 25 million active sellers. By the end of 2021, that was down to about 17 million. After that, eBay stopped sharing the number at all.

Outside estimates say it’s somewhere near 17 to 18 million today. But those are estimates, not eBay’s own count. The honest answer is that we don’t know for sure, because eBay stopped telling us.

Selling costs have gone up on the shipping side too, and that part is not eBay’s doing. The post office keeps raising prices on the services sellers actually use, like USPS Ground Advantage and Priority Mail.

And the increases keep coming more often than once a year. In January 2026, USPS raised Ground Advantage rates an average of 7.8% and Priority Mail 6.6%. In April, it added a temporary 8% bump that runs into January 2027. In July, it changed how packages are measured, which raises the bill on bigger, lighter boxes. Every fall, a holiday surcharge lands on top.

Stack it all up, and a Ground Advantage label costs about 16% more than it did in late 2025. I’ve broken down these USPS rate hikes in detail before. See my USPS holiday price increase breakdown and my Ground Advantage rate hike guide, plus the new $50 USPS hazmat fee if you ship flagged items.

I’m not going to tell you to quit eBay. I still sell here. For a lot of items, it’s still the best place to go, especially collector stuff like cards, parts, and hard-to-find things. Those are the exact areas eBay is leaning on now, so that’s good news if it’s what you sell.

But this news is a good reason to check two things.

First, know your real numbers. Your fees and your shipping have both gone up. If you haven’t done the math on a sale lately, you might be making less than you think.

Second, don’t put all your eggs in eBay’s basket. A company cutting jobs four times since 2023 is watching its own costs, not yours. It’s smart to have another place to sell.

eBay isn’t going anywhere. But it’s a smaller, more careful company than it was a few years back, and it’s going to keep acting like one. Keep that in mind when you plan your year.